Ethical Issues Concerning the Music Industry in Australia

Running Head: ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Name

1
ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
The music industry of Australia has an extensively rich historical significance dating
back to almost 40, 000 to 60,000 years of its existence (Tschmuck, et al. 2014). Contemporary
fusions of indigenous and Western music styles have made Australia one of the leading
contributors of this art in the world music platform. However with the changing trends of the
society the music industry also morphed into a new age entertainment industry which in turn
gave rise to various ethical concerns and the questioned the functioning of the artists, the
composers, the lyrists and the industry as a whole. The most persistent ethical concern has been
in the field of infringement of copy right law in the music and entertainment business industry.
Technology has been identified as driving force behind these moral issues. For instance when the
music streaming company Soptify was sued for $2 billion for copy right infringement as
California-based Wixen Music Publishing reported that all the songs were streamed without the
required license via Sopity’s app (Voigt, Buliga and Michl, 2017.). Thus the digital technology
in a way has aided in easy stealing of intellectual property rights. There have been several other
instances pertaining to this field of legal violation by artists themselves which has raised several
question on the sanctity of this industry. The copyright law suit which was filed against bin
Thicke and Pharrell Williams for the song Blurred Lines by Marvin Gaye’s children. This
copyright infringement case was more challenging as the song did not directly copy the lyrics but
importantly copied the “feel” of the original song pertaining to late 70’s (Lester, 2014). Though
Marvin Gaye’s children won the case and Blurred Lines became of on the most talked about
incidents in 2015, the judge order for a close comparison of the two music compositions and
regarded it to be a case of a creative homage than that of copy right infringement. Though
Thicker did admit that his composition was greatly influenced by Gaye’s work and he wanted to
bring in the same feel, it did not protect him from the infringement. There are numerous other

2
ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
cases like in the year 2014 musician Led Zeppelin faced severe allegations regarding his
composition that the iconic guitar riff in Stairway to Heaven was copied from a musical
composition by the rock band Spirit (Cohen, 2016). Similarly in the year 2010 the famous
Australian Band Men at Work were accused of infringing the copyright law as the flue riff in
their musical hit Down Under was copied from a folk song dating back to the year 1934 named
Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree (Fiske, Hodge and Turner, 2016). Ed Sheeran, Tim
McGraw and Faith Hill are among those contemporary musician who have been accused of
copyright infringement by two Australian Songwriters in relation to their association with the
song The Rest of our Life. The songwriters allege that the song is a copy of their composition
when I Found You (Marr, 2014).
Thus from the above cited instances it is quite clear that there are varied spectrums of
potential copyright infringement. While cases like Bitter Sweet Symphony are most prominent
examples of copyright infringement, the case of Blurred Lines is still seen in light of confusion.
To exactly analyze where copyright has gone wrong, it is necessary to glance a closer look on
these copyright infringement cases. When iconic songs are re composed, it tends to mingle with
the existing emotions of the listeners regarding that composition and often angers the mob
(Drummond, 2015). In the case of Down Under it was completely a different composition
compared to the allegation made. It has been observed by the critics that copyright law often fails
to distinguish what has been copied that is, is it the content or the idea or the feel of the
composition. Moreover songs like Got to Give It Up, was which a chartbuster was in 1977 owns
its copyright for another 40 significant years (Lund, 2013). Thus such an extraordinary length of
copyright protection directly means that such iconic hits which can be potential influence for
today’s music composers to create something new and iconic as that is locked away.